• @[email protected]
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    19 days ago

    Is this an angelfire website in the 90’s? Who the hell thought a background amalgamation of moving images was the best way to present printed media?

    I just can’t with these websites anymore. I find it almost impossible to read when there’s a embedded video as it is.

  • @[email protected]
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    19 days ago

    In Austria the ‘pedophile hunters’ targeted gay men who were not pedophiles. If ‘pedophile hunters’ would actually care about their cause, they would storm the next church…

    • Queen HawlSera
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      118 days ago

      The Church actually has a lower rate of child abuse than public schools…

    • @[email protected]
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      4019 days ago

      This is obviously where this is going and it’s a big part why they’re obsessed with labeling people “groomers.”

    • El Barto
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      19 days ago

      Don’t worry. That article was awful and the reporter is ignorant of how statistics work.

      First of all, it’s not all men. It’s “all Australian men.” And second of all, it’s not 1 in 6. It’s probably more like 1 in 20. Still a high number, but not as high as the reporter makes it out to be.

      The reporter ignored that the data can overlap.

      Sort of like saying:

      Pete would never let anyone slap him. Joe says he is willing to be slapped for $1000. He would also do it for $500. He would also do it for $200. Based on the above, THREE men out of four would be willing to be slapped for $1000 or less!!!

  • @[email protected]
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    3618 days ago

    What this ultimately amounts to is the worst actors using a blanket justification to carry out revenge fantasies against whatever marginalized group they’re fixated on.

    If you happen to be part of any of these marginalized groups, now would be the time to get armed and get dangerous. It would be great if we lived in a functioning society where this wasn’t necessary, but the failure of so many of our institutions is slowly rewinding our social fabric back to wild west times.

  • @[email protected]
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    4418 days ago

    I had a friend who was visiting Florida, and this vigilante group from some church setup a Grindr account to catch gay men. They made a profile of a guy in his 20s, had convos and planned to meet, then asked him to talk on some other platform, where his profile said he was underage. Keep in mind, this is just a fictional person. And the Florida court loves to toss LGBT in jail, so beware out there.

  • @[email protected]
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    4819 days ago

    shit gonna morph into persecuting queer people real quick.

    And then when it’s pointed out a bunch of mfs are gonna say. “Why are you AFRAID?? WhAt aN odd tHinG to sAy!! they’re only going after bad people!”

    like shit brother. right on brother. Im sorry. I guess all those 1920’s lynch mobs were only going after criminals too then 🤷‍♂️. Matter of fact I bet no innocent people were hurt, and it wasn’t because of the color of their skin at all. Only criminals! /s

    • @[email protected]
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      218 days ago

      I have heard people saying panto should be 18+ because it has a man dressed as a woman. Your ideology is a fucking joke.

    • @[email protected]
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      719 days ago

      They’ve never heard of the railroad strikes of 1922 and call people free loaders for striking.

  • Omega
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    7518 days ago

    Oh. They’re just gonna call people pedo and attack them even though they’re not. It’s extremely obvious.

    • @[email protected]
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      218 days ago

      Sad because actual paedos gonna be like “who, not me, someone cried wolf on me!”… As someone who was trafficked and abused with my sister and then even after she got out, I’ve heard them laugh about paedos caught in the news and act like they’re not exactly that. Meanwhile the people who actually hurt me stayed or died free because you also see on the news how false accusations ruin innocent people’s lives, so it feels like what we say as real victims not only doesn’t matter but will be ignored because sexism is back full-swing and they prefer us women to be seen and not heard once again like the old days. I wish patriarchal societies weren’t hell-bent on using and ending women and children to justify their means of global blackmail control.

    • @[email protected]
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      1118 days ago

      Or very likely make mistakes. Vigilantes is nice in comic books and movies, in real life it turns terrible very quickly.

  • @[email protected]
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    1918 days ago

    Vigilantism is on the rise regardless, Either because the police are incompetent / carefree about the complaints. or because individuals are overzealous, dont undrestand or agree with the law, and decide to cosplay as the punisher.

  • @[email protected]
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    2618 days ago

    I always knew there was something wrong with that these people were doing but couldn’t exactly put my finger on it and never talked about it because people would’ve yelled at me and used false dillema arguments like many people who criticized them back them recieved “You support pedophiles you removed

    • @[email protected]
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      3019 days ago

      Reddit would be outraged about an 18 yo dating a 16 yo, though. Some people have really weird and unrealistic views on this

      • @[email protected]
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        3119 days ago

        Those Redditors are probably 16 year olds themselves upset that the girls they like are always going for 18 - 20 year olds

      • @[email protected]
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        919 days ago

        That’s why I find reddit so strange. Age gaps is apparently the most demonic thing you can do. No matter if you’re 19 dating a 17 or 34 dating a 27 you’re a huge red flag either way.

        • @[email protected]
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          1119 days ago

          Yup, and the arguments are so weirdly self centered, too. “I went through so much when I started college, what would I talk about with someone in HIGH SCHOOL?” (19-17 gap) Dude, you started smoking pot and went to a few frat parties, it’s not that deep. Also are these people just always discussing life experiences for some reason? No shared interests, hobby groups, common acquaintances?

  • @[email protected]
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    2419 days ago

    I don’t have a problem with actual pedophiles that are caught in these dragnets.

    My problem arises from the lack of rigorous and well-documented investigation into the target before shite starts popping off. As the article pointed out, there is nothing wrong with a 22yo dating an 18yo. And the problem here is a sense of vindictiveness trying to manufacture targets where not all targets are guilty of pedophilia.

    So: you want to take a pipe wrench to warm over a pedophile? Make sure there is oodles of evidence that clearly and unambiguously makes the person a pedophile, and sure as shite I will look the other way. But the problem is that there is no self-reinforcing framework in place within the vigilante system to ensure and enforce this threshold of evidence. And without this system, innocent people are going to get hurt or killed.

    • sunzu2
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      219 days ago

      As the article pointed out, there is nothing wrong with a 22yo dating an 18yo.

      Who said there is anything wrong with this?

      How is tbsi even example of pedophile rape? It is two adults.

      that’s a weird thing to bring NYT tbh

      Didn’t see NYT editor get caught with videos of rape of his own children on his phone recently?

      Maybe NYP?

      • @[email protected]
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        1119 days ago

        Who said there is anything wrong with this?

        How is tbsi even example of pedophile rape? It is two adults.

        that’s a weird thing to bring NYT tbh

        Tell me you completely failed to grok my criticisms without saying that they flew clear over your head at 10,000m

        • sunzu2
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          519 days ago

          The point I was making… Is that the article brought a red herring fact that has nothing to do with anything

          Why did they bring it up?

          • @[email protected]
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            19 days ago

            The point I was making… Is that the article brought a red herring fact that has nothing to do with anything

            Why did they bring it up?

            It was not a red herring in the least, and it struck to the very core of my own criticisms: while some vigilantes may be very stringent about their own investigations and targets, others may not.

            In this example, these vigilantes artificially engineered a target where none was likely to ever exist. They drew the target in using the profile of a perfectly legal 18yo woman, but then turned around and claimed that the target was actually chasing the profile of an 17yo - and illegally young - girl, when he was in fact not doing so.

            This was a very clear situation of entrapment by false pretenses.

            • sunzu2
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              219 days ago

              That’s what police already does tbh

              Also, if somebody is doing that and gets caught, I doubt they will get any sympathy from society.

              Vigelanty justice only works when target deserved like the dead CEO, otherwise it just crime.

              • @[email protected]
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                119 days ago

                Vigelanty justice only works when target deserved like the dead CEO, otherwise it just crime.

                You clearly see the world in black-and-white, when it really is made up of shades of grey.

                Which means that since you haven’t already gotten the point, all the crayons and construction paper in the world isn’t going to help.

                • sunzu2
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                  118 days ago

                  I am sorry somebody said something you didn’t like online search ;)

      • Queen HawlSera
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        418 days ago

        Sadly there are a lot of weirdos who think ANY AGE GAP AT ALL is basically the same as pedophilia

        • Fluffy Kitty Cat
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          318 days ago

          People get called things over fanfics and stuff. Innocent people have plenty to be afraid of

          • Queen HawlSera
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            18 days ago

            As a writer myself, I can only imagine how many the “All characters are 18 or older unless specifically said otherwise” blurb has saved. I feel like that blurb has become standard in fanworks and web original stories, even when they don’t involve sex. If there’s even the slightest chance anything that happens could be interpreted as someone’s kink, you better believe it’s there now.

            I actually have one character from a series I wrote ages ago, I kind of abandoned it because I’m not edgy anymore, but I still use the lead character from time to time for art projects; commissions mostly, as she did have a fun character design being an undead gerbil and all.

            I’ve retroactively upped her age from 17 to 19, just to be safe.

            Though as I said, I was REALLY edgy when I wrote the book series (I was around 19 myself, I’m 33 now), so this is a change I’m actually happy to have made.

            It wasn’t pornographic, it was based on the movie “I Spit On Your Grave”, only if the lead character was killed and got revenge from beyond the grave, so there was a sex scene with her, but it was intended to be immorally wrong and disturbing… and mostly talked about how this otherwise fearless street tough was suffering… It was also over quick and not elaborated on too much beyond giving the sense that “This is horrible and she’s very much not a fan” as the point of the book was that she died horribly, but was given a chance at revenge in the afterlife. (There wasn’t even a content warning, because this was so long ago that “CWs” weren’t a thing)

            I’ve actually considered doing a reboot of her story and making it lighter and softer, maybe removing the rape from her death entirely.

            Not because of fears of being targeted mind you, but because I like the character I created and would love to tell more stories with her, but I’m not the edgelord I was when I first wrote her and if I wrote about her today would never have handled her story the way I did.

    • @[email protected]
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      318 days ago

      I’m going go assume from your instance you’re not American, but the big flaw in your logic is if you come after me with a pipe, I’m absolutely within my rights to put holes into you until you stop moving.

      Vigalante justice is going to get the people who think they’re “doing a good thing” killed, and with zero consequences to the pedos who shoot them.

      Perhaps a more adult, informed, nuanced take is of use here?

      • @[email protected]
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        118 days ago

        Sometimes criminals also shoot back at the police that come after them with guns.

        In the heat of the moment, the only difference between a vigilante and a cop is the level of training, the assigned equipment, and the choice for the cop to follow well-established procedural rules. It’s only when you zoom out do you see the legal system supporting the cop. But when zoomed in and examining the individual incidents, nothing says the cop can’t come away with added lead, either.

    • @[email protected]
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      819 days ago

      You and the people upvoting you are gravely mistaken.

      This isn’t about protecting the innocent.

      It is about inflicting unaccountable violence.